What about to make a bit improved design of DH map with some fixed mistakes?

[Nick3210]

I just realise that you are right about Liverpool, the name of the province could remain Portsmouth or Southampton. Liverpool is indeed close to Manchester. There is not much place to add Liverpool sadly.

View attachment 1271873

I just as total Realism/Historicity neeeerd totally protest against the relocation of Liverpool to Portsmouth, it will crush old HMS Victory!

 

[Rodolphe123]

Ancona is too big, we coul also use Rimini there.
Instead Lucca, I'd say take just a bit from Genoa and dont cut Firenze to the sea, while no beach, and then name it La Spezia and set the naval base.
San Remo or Cuneo split from Genoa to the Alpine border. Same coulb be done with Torino and Aosta.

I agree that Ancona is to big, but there is no other big city in the Marche region.
Lucca seems to be the biggest city on the coast in Tuscany. Firenze is inland.
Again I don't want to ask to much from Vilochka, unless that he is really interested to modified many provinces in many countries.

 

[Rodolphe123]

I would try po put there also Dijon from parts of Chaumont and Belfort.

If Mr Vilochka agrees !

 

[Rodolphe123]

I just as total Realism/Historicity neeeerd totally protest against the relocation of Liverpool to Portsmouth, it will crush old HMS Victory!

I was little bit tired when I did the post about that. Thanks for calling my mistake. Liverpool must not be move ! But it could be added or not depending of the matser of map making (as for York and Newcastle maybe).

 

[Nick3210]

he is really interested to modified many provinces in many countries.

Good news, looks like mr Vilochka agrees to become our long-waited Messia and to do this huge job!

But, guys, first at all we need to bring Soviet-German front (including Caucasus area) provinces according to reality and common sense.
And only then go to the remaining important theaters of operations.

The provinces between sea of Azov and Caspian sea are to big (Krasnodar to Elista).

Totally agree about Krasnodar and Voroshilovsk (Elista is OK - that's mostly lifeless desert lands).

I can already see that the steppes north of the Caucasus mountains have more important logistics hubs than the current only two huge provinces.

Therefore, the next package of changes that I will make will be dedicated to the Caucasus. There are an excessive number of unnecessary and small provinces and several unnecessarily huge provinces that it makes sense to divide according to the real logistical map of this region.

 

[Rodolphe123]

Good news, looks like he agrees to become our long-waited Messia and to do this huge job!

But, guys, first at at all we need to bring Soviet-German front (including Caucasus area) provinces according to reality.
And only then go to the remaining important theaters of operations.

Totally agree about Krasnodar and Stavropol (Elista is OK).

I can already see that the steppes north of the Caucasus mountains have more important logistics hubs than the current only two huge provinces.

Therefore, the next package of changes that I will make will be dedicated to the Caucasus. There are an excessive number of unnecessary and small provinces and unnecessarily huge provinces that it makes sense to divide according to the real logistical map of this region.

Okay, I wanted to make suggestions about Caucasus myself, but I let you that job. You probably know better then myself the area.
Then, I will make suggestions in following days for some changes in : Poland/East Prussia, in Germany, In Iran (close to USSR and Teheran), In Japan, In Australia.
It will be suggestions based: on historicity - rivers - gameplay
Again, I don't want to make 100 suggestions, unless that Mr V is ready for a hard road !

 

[Nick3210]

I don't want to make 100 suggestions, unless that Mr V is ready for a hard road !

I sure that's right. I try to make only the most necessary changes and in the least efforts-consuming way and do not change what can stay be not changed.
I understand that it takes a lot of work, and we have only one mr V and we don't have to drive him like a horse to the death. We must save him.

 

[tioperete]

The suggestion that I am making are a mix of real territorial divisions and for gameplay purpose also. In reality we would have to double the number of provinces everywhere to represent adequately each countries territorial division. But then, the map would become the E3 map, and it already exists. What I suggest is some adjustement in important countries and to not modifiy to much the map.

I suggest adding provinces where the war would be wage mostly. I don't want to make to many suggestion to Mr Vilochka, because it is a massive work to redo many provinces. If he wants to improve much more the map, I am more then willing to study the real territorial division and to post it, but it would be a little bit crazy to implement.

I agree that instead of Berkshire, it could be Reading.

I just realise that you are right about Liverpool, the name of the province could remain Portsmouth or Southampton. Liverpool is indeed close to Manchester. There is not much place to add Liverpool sadly.

So it would be like that :
View attachment 1271873

Only change I would to that one is splitting Swansea from Cardiff.

Newcastle and Sunderland shouldn't be split, Newcastle was the main city while Sunderland was the TPs shipyard, it's just choose one name or the other. York by the contrary could be separated from Sunderland.

 

[tioperete]

I agree that Ancona is to big, but there is no other big city in the Marche region.
Lucca seems to be the biggest city on the coast in Tuscany. Firenze is inland.
Again I don't want to ask to much from Vilochka, unless that he is really interested to modified many provinces in many countries.

If you want to stick to administrative borders, Rimini is not the in the Marches, then Urbino is the one to go. Not that big, but still historically important and the center of that part of the region. And the most important thing, I have the perfect province pic for it

In the case you want to cut Firenze, then Pisa is a better option than Lucca I think.

But the one I definitely would go for, is to make a spot for La Spezia and the naval base.

I'd also would split Verona from Venezia.

 

[tioperete]

Nick, about Najizhevan, it's not only about today borders. It was part of Armenia and stripped in the azeri-armenian war and the soviet occupation, like High Karabaj. Having them is historically accurate at least for me, specially for a winning Germany that have to organize the territory.
Anyways, we have to not forget, that while DH is mainly a ww2 game, we still have the ww1 here, so taking a look to the events from 1912 (first balkan war) to 1922-23 (end of the last conflicts derivated from ww1) is something that should be taken into account when doing the map, except you only want the perfect map for your mod according to your preferences

And what do you think about Alexandropol/Gyumri being splitted from Yerevan? Atm Armenian SSR is only one province.

Also I would separate Artvin from Trebizond in the turkish-soviet border. Would make more changes in Turkey, specially in the Black Sea, but by the moment lets stick to Caucasus.

 

[Lord Rommel]

[Maps deleted]

My 2 cents for germany:

New:
- Bitburg > Eifel - the area now as Eifel or Ardennes - no real infrastructure; a rural and hilly terrain.
- Siegen > Sauerland - the "mountain" area that is marking the split of "western germany" to "central germany". A region with limited infrastructure. It was bypassed in ww2 for that reason.
- Suhl > The "hill boarder" between eastern and western germany; the mobilisation area for the cold war in terms of a warsaw attack against the Fulda gap. Important arms center.
- Ulm > classic military town and the "boarder" between "Bavaria" and "Swabia" (I know; Franken, Baiern and Schwaben would kill me now xDDD). USed to move Stuttgart to a more fitting position.
- Goch > The Reichswald; an area with limited infantrastrucuture that is influences by the "Reichswald"; a forrest region. Allies thought germans would hide an army in the forrest. The Area saw a number of fights to allow the british forces to bypass the Ruhrarea at the northern end.

Moved/adjusted
- Stuttgart > A more fitting position
- Heilbronn (former Karlsruhe) > new town that will replace Karlsruhe. Heilbronn was an industrial spot with chemical industry.
- Düsseldorf > the last "major" town on the right side of the river Rhine before u get to the Frankfurt area. In "classic" terms Cologne would sit on both sides because of the Köln-Bonn-Koblenz area but for gameplay reasons and to get the "urban" area of Wuppertal, Düsseldorf and Leverkusen in a single region PLUS cut if from the Ruhrgebiet - the Ruhr area . The design of the Düsseldorf province is a bit tricky for many reasons but with the layout u have the "gap" on the map the allies used to bypass the Ruhr pocket at the south to get to Kassel area.
- Essen > The new "Ruhtgebiet" area mixing in Duisburg, Oberhausen, Bottrop, Gelsenkirchen, Bochum, Hagen, Herne, Recklinghausen, Mülheim an der Ruhr, Witten and -of course- Dortmund. Perhaps there is an argument to name the province "Ruhrgebiet" because all theses town were industrial power houses with many companies and industries. From a cultural point the "Essen" area is what we call here "Der Pott"; The Ruhr area.
- Erfurt > Adjusted to get in the Thuringa Forrest with its hills in the Suhl area. There would be a number of arguments to adjust the province to get a other vectors into the Fulda area.

That would be my 2 cents for my germany.

The Effects wouldnt change classic frontline rations in the areas that much. The adjustments reflect geographical splits that have a lot of influence till today in terms of traffic, industry and administrational design and layout. Plus the adjustments reflect classic "movement routes" in ww2.

 

[Nick3210]

Anyways, we have to not forget, that while DH is mainly a ww2 game, we still have the ww1 here, so taking a look to the events from 1912 (first balkan war) to 1922-23 (end of the last conflicts derivated from ww1) is something that should be taken into account when doing the map, except you only want the perfect map for your mod according to your preferences

Yes, I already see that at some stage our paths will diverge. And probably, when I get what I want in terms of correcting the main errors of the map, I will stop there, and other modders can continue to work with mr Vilochka by ordering for their mods all other changes that will not be made for my mod. Or even delete any my fixes that you don't like.

For example, you can order him to make a terrible unhistorical Japanese zone on the seashore without a magnifying window
(the whole point is that Shanghai's Japanese quarter was not located on the coast and did not touch the sea at all, so only window can correctly display this unique feature of Japanese quarter).

As I understand it, all modders have their own views on geography, sometimes completely opposite, and as I understand it, it is impossible to come to a common consensus and create a map that would suit everybody.

My aim is to fix major blunders in geography in the main war theaters where players usually fought in the game. I don't have an aim to divide all the big provinces into small ones everywhere without any serious reasonable reasons for this, just so that more small provinces appear on the map.

Therefore, I think you can do this with mr Vilochka later, without me, when we finish the basic part of the work on correcting the most gross and annoying errors of the vanilla map.

---

Yes, I'm making a map for WW2 only, and as you can see, I've already crossed that rubicon and there's no turning back - I'm changing the pre-revolutionary names of Soviet cities to Soviet names.

I was thinking about whether I should try to make universal map for 1914, WW2 and the Cold War, and decided that universality would only harm 1914 and WW2 and the Cold War.

Therefore, yes, the map we are now making is for WW2 only. That's why I'm boldly liquidating Gaza and changing the names of cities to Soviet ones.

I believe modders dealing with the 1914 scenarios should make their own version of the map, taking into account the WW1 policy and geography. May be based on what we're doing now. But it definitely has to be a different type of map.

 

[Lord Rommel]

To be fair; I guess it would be more interesting to get a sort of "tutorial" what @Vilochka is doing.
I would adjust the map for my needs by myself. The last trials ended with the problem that I never got a working set of tools. Often the map packing tool wasnt working for reasons I never could solve... So I'm more interested in the setup (what tools is he using, what for an operating system is he using, what for a setup is he using) because I want to be able to work on the map by myself

​

 

[Nick3210]

And what do you think about Alexandropol/Gyumri being splitted from Yerevan? Atm Armenian SSR is only one province.

Just as Mr. Rommel has an inexplicable irrationally mystical fear of the changing connections between provinces, I has a similar unexplained mystical phobia too!

I am inexplicable irrationally afraid to change the vanila number of province in DH game!
Yes, I assume that if we slightly increase the number of provinces, then there will be no deterioration in the behavior of AI.
Nevertheless, I'm pretty sure that if we don't change the total number of provinces, we definitely 100% won't harm the game. But if we increase the number of provinces more than vanilla, then there is no exact guarantee that something will not go wrong.
I'm really afraid to change something what I don't understand how it does works.

Therefore, at least at my stage of work, I consider myself limited in adding new provinces. To add a new province, I have to delete an unnecessary province somewhere.
When I get what I need, you can continue to improve the map and create more provinces than in vanilla, but without me, I don't want to be responsible for the consequences.

Therefore, I am already licking my lips with a hungry looking at Nakhichevan in order to use it as a donor to create provinces north of the Caucasus.
Leninakan looks close to Yerevan, don't think it need to be splitted... I need free ID to make more provinces north of the Caucasus and to split Baku.

First of all, I want to fix the most annoying thing - it is necessary to separate the oil-bearing region of Baku into a separate not big province.
Kirovabad (Кировабад) looks like an excellent logistics hub for creation of a new province after the dividing of Baku in two provinces:

 

[Lord Rommel]

Just as Mr. Rommel has an inexplicable irrationally mystical fear of the changing connections between provinces, I has a similar unexplained mystical phobia too!

For the record:
I dont have fears but I try to think of a backlash or problem that could be caused by the change BEFORE i start to draw new lines to a map. At least I try to add pros and cons to my suggestions. It is called "reflection of actions" and sometimes its a great tool to prevent massive errors It was a hard lesson I learned from modding other games.

 

[Rodolphe123]

Well, for Poland, I suggest many changes exceptionally :

- In East Prussia, I suggest to reduce Elbing and divide in two Allenstein while adding Gumbinnen ;

- In Plock, I suggest to divide it in 3 and to add Plonsk & Przasnysz ;

- I suggest to divide Chelm in two, and to add Radzyn ;

- I suggest to divide Lodz in two, and to add Grojek ;

- I suggest to divide Radom in two, and to add Kielce ;

- I suggest to divide Czestochowa in two, and to add Kalisz ;

- I suggest to divide Poznan in two, and to add Ostrow Wielkopolski ;

.

 

[Rodolphe123]

For the record:
I dont have fears but I try to think of a backlash or problem that could be caused by the change BEFORE i start to draw new lines to a map. At least I try to add pros and cons to my suggestions. It is called "reflection of actions" and sometimes its a great tool to prevent massive errors It was a hard lesson I learned from modding other games.

I agree with you that many changes to a map will have consequences. Many files would have to be change : Revolt file, AI files, Events Files, scenarios files, provinces names files, etc. It takes time, but it would work after trial and error.

 

[Nick3210]

- I suggest to divide Czestochowa in two, and to add Kalisz ;

In my opinion, Czestochowa is the most terrible province in DH.
I remember I broke my head, not finding a good option for assigning a reasonable hub to set the coordinates of this province. And also, if I remember correctly, in the vanilla map, this province has an insane 5 km distance with another province.

This area definitely needs to be changed.
I think the main problem is the excessively long name of "Czestochowa''. I guess the Map creators created such a terrible province with such a ridiculous shape just because they had to cram in that damn long name!
And I have no idea how to cram this name anywhere.
Perhaps we should look for another hub with a shorter name there. Or just write it as 'Czest'. Or divide it in two provinces - "Czest" and "Ochowa"
There is also good option to make it as a magnifying window placed in the Baltic Sea in order to write its name on the Baltic Sea, the same way as we made the Japanese zone. (don't beat me that's joke!!)

 

[Rodolphe123]

Here is many suggestions for Germany (without East Prussia) :


- Stettin would become Kolberg & Stargard ;

- A part of Stratsund & a part of Frankfurt would become : Stettin ;

- The northern part of Frankfurt an der Oder would become Eberswalde ;

- The southern part of Rostock would become Schwerin ;

- The eastern part of Potsdam would become Zossen (the GHQ place of the Wehrmacht) ;

- Potsdam would receive the north-west part of Cottbus ;

- The western part of Leipzig and western part of Dresden would become Chemnitz ;

- A part of Hannover and a part of Magdeburg would become Brunswick ;

- Bremen would be expanded southward in Luneburg ;

- Oldenburg would create from southern part of Wilhemshaven ;

- The western part of Munster and northern part of Dusseldorf would become Essen ;

- The northern part of Koln would become Kleve ;

- Former Essen & western part of Bielefeld would become Dortmund ;

- Neuwield becomes Coblence ;

The game would become more interesting around Berlin.

 

[Rodolphe123]

Here, some suggestions for Persia.

The country is important has it was occupied by USSR & UK/USA in order to supply USSR during the war. It is also a gateway toward Irak, India, Caucasus, Turkmenistan.

- I suggest to create Semnan province from east part of Mashhad ;

- I suggest to create Gorgan from east part of Sari ;

- I suggest to expand a little bit Sari povince in Rasht province ;

- I suggest to create Zanjan province from south of Tabriz ;